Powell may get a surprise at State

WASHINGTON -- Colin Powell found the culture of the State Department hard to take when he was a soldier sizing up diplomats.

The department seemed to exist in its own world, he observed, a place of naive expectations and amorphous goals, along with antiseptic words that ''usually had bloody consequences for the military.''

Now it's to become his world.

Powell is a cinch to win Senate confirmation in hearings that begin Wednesday. A Washington insider as well as an admired public figure, Powell has been treated like magic dust by leaders in both parties.

He was named as a Cabinet prospect by George W. Bush long before Bush won the presidency. He was courted for secretary of state by President Clinton back in 1994, when Powell was leading him and all Republican presidential contenders in polls.

Powell said no to the job offer then, and to running for president later.

But while the country's senior military officer in the Persian Gulf War is a popular choice for secretary of state, that doesn't mean he won't get -- or deliver -- a culture shock at Foggy Bottom, home of the State Department. Nor does it mean he'll get only easy questions on the way.

Powell's trademark reluctance to intervene in foreign crises without clear goals, public support and more than enough tools to do the job epitomizes the military mindset of the post-Vietnam era but is not a natural fit with activist traditions at State.

Indeed, something of a role reversal between the Pentagon and the State Department was hinted at in the confirmation hearing of Donald Rumsfeld for defense secretary.

Rumsfeld said he was uncomfortable with the idea that the nation must always be rallied before military action.

''There are times when leaders have to act when the public's not there yet,'' he said.

Time after time in Powell's Washington career, which included stints as Ronald Reagan's national security adviser and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under George Bush and the early Clinton administration, Powell counseled caution.

He favored continued sanctions against Iraq when others had given up on them, resisted mass intervention in Bosnia and Haiti, and passed up an early chance to intervene and perhaps help unseat Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega before U.S. forces eventually arrested him.

Outgoing Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, asked on CNN to comment on the so-called Powell doctrine, said, ''Life is very different than eight years ago'' and there are times the limited use of force works.

''I'm sure that a lot of people think it takes gall for a mere mortal female to argue with a general, but I truly do believe that, in this day and age, the role of the United States makes a difference, our engagement makes a difference, not just in terms of where we use our military but generally how we apply our influence,'' she said.

She added, ''You have to have a choice between doing everything, the way it happened in the Gulf War, or doing nothing.''

The Powell doctrine concerns the use of force at its core and is meant to ensure U.S. lives are not squandered in a hopeless cause.

But it may be an imperfect guide to how he will approach his new job because diplomacy sometimes does not place soldiers' lives at stake but rather U.S. influence.